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In the comic strip Peanuts, Charlie Brown is lamenting that Linus will have to go to school twice as long as others…in order to unlearn everything big sister Lucy (mis)taught him! This humorous aside reveals something important: sometimes we have to shed wrong ideas in order to understand the truth of any matter.

The Advent Season and celebration of Christmas is a wonderful time to reflect on the Incarnation of the Almighty, the arrival of Jesus as God with us. We are astonished at the mystery of Mother Mary nursing her Creator and Redeemer. We offer our worship as we join with the angelic hosts proclaiming peace with the birth of our Lord and Savior. As we, like Mary, treasure in our hearts the profound truth that the crèche of Bethlehem will soon yield to the Cross of Calvary as Jesus atones for the sins of all humankind.

It is also fitting that we unlearn a few things about this moment in history:

Joseph, Mary and Jesus were not homeless and poor. They we returning to their ancestral home for the census and found overcrowded conditions leading to modest lodgings in a barn. Jesus’ upbringing would be classified today as an artisan, small business owner or working class.

The Wise Men from the East arrived about 18 months after the birth of Jesus in an entourage of scores of people. These were Persian leaders and scholars alerted to Messiah’s birth by heavenly signs.

Christmas as a Christian holiday has been controversial from the 4th C to the present, with many rejecting its materialism and syncretism with winter solstice celebrations. As late as the mid-19th century, many churches and even states in the USA has no official Christmas Holiday!

Jesus is born in a geography that was a crossroads of the continents and cultures. Though considered a country backwater by the Roman Empire, Judea was in fact a place of deep learning and tradition in Judaism as well as a locale where the Greek was the marketplace language and Roman Law provided stability.

Celebrating Christmas is good. Adapting local cultural expressions into Christian worship is accepted by most around the world. As we enjoy this Season, it is fitting to renew our covenant with the Lord and share this Good News with a confused and rebellious world.

In the previous essays, the Islamist ethos of conquest was exposed. We must honestly face this threat to human liberty.

Confronting totalitarian ideology requires military and political courage and wisdom. The policies since 9-11-2001 have been haphazard at best and utter failures at worst.

But there is one more resource needed in the battle for liberty: humility about the moral and spiritual bankruptcy of the West. The battle against fanaticism will never be won without integrity at the core of the fight. At first this sounds counter intuitive. Often folks say that if our opponents fight dirty, so must we. While there may be moments of compromise and subversion in any war, at the heart of success must be an unflinching faith in the values and vision for the civilization we are defending.

One of the Islamists’ most destructive and divisive tactics is their blistering critique of Western decadence, including our materialism, narcissism and racism. Each of these self-centered characteristics creates fertile ground for the poison of ideological extremism.

History loudly exposes the darker side of the West.All of these events embolden radicals with long memories:
• 15th-19th century conquest and exploitation of the Americas;
• 19th and 20th century European “mandates” in Africa and the Middle East;
• The conquest of the North American continent at the expense of indigenous rights;
• And the 20th century American domination of her empire acquired in war.

For the past six decades, the West has struggled to atone for prior evils and bring aid to the world, with mixed results. One thing does ring true, in spite of all the mistakes made:

Everywhere there is freedom of conscience and economic opportunity in the world, there has been some form of Christian and Western influence encouraging values that lead to human flourishing. And Islam has never produced a truly egalitarian democracy. These values include more than “freedom.” Religious faith, personal responsibility, access to markets, property rights and the rule of law are all part of this liberating ethos.

Time for Truth

Courage and humility, joined with reverence for the Almighty and respect for all persons, provide the moral and spiritual core strength for the long battle we must face with the global jihadists. If we continue to waste our energies in amoral and immoral entertainment and cultural distractions, there will not be the energy and focus needed for wise confrontation and defeat of determined enemies.